Brighton Beach

Brighton Beach is a neighborhood in southern Brooklyn, New York City, located along the Atlantic Ocean. The land around Brighton Beach and Seagate was purchased from the Lenape by the United Provinces in 1645 in exchange for a gun, a blanket, and a kettle, and it was given its name in 1878 by a businessman who sought to attract migrants to the area; Brighton is the name of a sea resort in England. In 1894, Brighton Beach was annexed into Brooklyn, and it became home to a large Jewish community during the early 20th century, with the first Yiddish theater in the United States being opened in Brighton Beach in 1919. After World War II, the poverty rate and dependency ratio increased as the elderly began to outnumber the young, and many middle-class people and government workers moved to the suburbs. The poor, the elderly, and the mentally-ill lived in single-room occupancy homes, and Brighton Beach suffered from arson and drug activity during the 1970s. During the late 1980s and 1990s, immigrants from the Soviet Union arrived in Brighton Beach in droves, and the area became known as "Little Odessa" due to its large Eastern European population. In 2010, 35,547 people lived in Brighton Beach, with 69.7% being white, 14.6% Hispanic, 12.9% Asian, 1.2% multiracial, 1% African-American, .4% other races, .2% Native American, and 0% Pacific islander (10 people).